Graham Porter’s Gardening: Potatoes

IF you could have seen my grandchildren's eyes when we tipped out the container last week that had been holding their two potatoes for the last three and half months, you would have thought they had been to heaven and back.

IF you could have seen my grandchildren's eyes when we tipped out the container last week that had been holding their two potatoes for the last three and half months, you would have thought they had been to heaven and back.

Two small potatoes were carefully put in an egg box, with eyes upper most, on a cool but sunny windowsill in our kitchen in mid-February, when outdoors was still locked into the northern Arctic blasts. For more than a month they were completely ignored, as their sprouting eyes began their long journey.

These were planted out in early April in one of the proprietary potato bags in about 15 cm (6”) of normal multi-purpose compost.

As the shoots grew, we earthed them up until the compost was almost at the top of the container – late May.

Between us we have kept them well watered, with an occasional feed of weak liquid tomato food and, hey presto, we have recently harvested 3.5 kg (7½ lbs) of beautiful egg-sized new potatoes and had some for our tea along with some freshly picked garden peas.

If you have never tried it, ask for some of the new seed potatoes that are coming into the garden centres over the next few weeks and try it for yourself.

This crop will require glasshouse or conservatory protection from mid-September onwards and you might be harvesting new potatoes for your Christmas dinner.